My reply to messianic leader Russ Resnik
In his article about Catholic Church’s recent change in stance regarding its missionizing of Jews, messianic leader Russ Resnik made the following statement:
Just as the Post-WWII Catholic Church renounced centuries of error about the Jewish people without losing its core identity, so we [Messianic Jews] are freeing ourselves from centuries of Jewish denial about Jesus as Messiah without losing our Jewish identity.
My reply to Russ Resnik, taking issue with his self-assessment of Jews who become Jesus-worshipers today, as opposed to prior centuries:
I think that what’s important here is not the “messiahship of Jesus”, but rather the explicit but seldom publicly promoted (in front of “unbelieving Jews”) belief (in common with the rest of Christendom) of Messianic Jews that Yeshua is divine, or G-d, worthy of worship due to G-d alone. How can Jews be wrong for refusing to worship a man-god instead of G-d alone? How can they be in “denial” that such a thing is wrong? The issue of messiahship of this or that candidate pales in comparison to the issue of idolatry.
As far as MJs not losing their “Jewish identities” – how many MJs, including their rabbis, are married to Gentile Christians? How many have children who are not considered Jewish by any Jewish denomination? How many of their own children and grandchildren marry Gentiles? And how can this failure to transmit Jewish identity (which is the most basic of ways to do so) be compared to intermarriage among secular / Reform Jews who are often far removed from religion and Jewish community, when Messianic Jews supposedly know “the ultimate truth” even better than the Orthodox Jews?
Daily Minyan 
Is that man part of an ecumenical movement? He looks like he loves the catholic church too much…
I think that many of those in the Messianic Movement who subscribe to the so called “bilateral ecclesiology” want to re-approach ALL of the groups in the Christian world as part of the “Gentile wing” of the Church, no matter what denominations they are. And since the Catholic Church is by far the largest and most influential, it makes sense to make it part of the “Gentile wing” of the BE Church.
I would have found that news troubling if I would still be Christian. Now though,… I don’t see that much difference. Mary, Jesus, the saints and the pope all fall under the same category, men.
Another reason for messianics to join hands with the Catholic Church, the largest body of Christians, is to establish legitimacy of the “Messianic Judaism” within Christendom, to be a “Jewish partner” with the Christians. Because, let’s face it, most of the Christian world today looks at messianics in a negative light, seeing them as judaizers and as an impediment to Jewish-Christian interfaith dialog.
But they will alienate themselves form most messianic… Messianic right now are mostly fundamentalist Christians and see Catholicism as a false religion. If they affiliate themselves too much with Catholics, they will lose the messianic Christians.
“seeing them as judaizer”
The messianic movement is full of them…
“as an impediment”
Maybe because they try too much to pretend they are Jewish and deceive people about it.
It might just be a dead-end to the messianic movement if they try to affiliate themselves with Catholics. Or maybe you will have the mainstream “catholic” messianic movement and a bunch of “protestant” messianic congregation.
I think they try their best to be vague about their desire to join the catholic church. They never say they are ecumenical, because they don’t want to scare the fundamentalist.
“It might just be a dead-end to the messianic movement”
Within the MJs world, this is primarily driven by former Catholic convert turned messianic rabbi Mark Kinzer. The rest are going along for the ride:)
Can anyone tell me how a baby born in a manger is Jewish / biblical?
Hi Leonard, it’s biblical! look at the proofs, it’s because you have been blinded by the god of this worlds ;)
As it is written:
Job 39:9 — will he spend the night at your manger?
Rhetorical question to show Jesus will be in a manger.
An ox knows its owner, And a donkey its master’s manger!
And that shows that there was an ox and a donkey when the son of man was born!
and finally:
Where no oxen are, the manger is clean!
Yes, yes, the manger itself was clean for the son of man… because he could not have been in an unclean place, being the Sun of Man!
And if you don’t agree.. well it’s not worst than “out of Egypt, I called my son”
“Can anyone tell me how a baby born in a manger is Jewish / biblical?”
Leonard… it doesn’t. However, Christians point to Isaiah 53:2 that the servant described there is born under tenuous conditions and has “no stately form or majesty” that would attract people to him (although it seems like the “Magi ” were quite attracted to Jesus, enough to travel from quite far away and bring lots of goodies), so being relegated to a dirty manger, if not prophesied explicitly, marks the servant as humble.
Gene, I like my bible verses better ;)
I’m curious Gene, what Jewish group do you identify with? Conservative, Orthodox, or do you not really prefer a label like that?
I am Orthodox. I don’t mind the label.
In your denounciation of Messianic Judaism, you are completely forgetting Daniel ch 7 where the son of man is given dominion, Kingdom, and Glory by the Ancient of Days–this is clearly Messiah we are talking about! Remeber in the beginning was Elohim (the world is plural). The word Echad can be a compound unity, unlike the word Yechid that Rambam chose to use.
You have to throw out, and distort major portions of Torah and Tanach to keep supporting this rejection and hatred of Messiah Yeshua.
Adoni hates idolatry, but if my view is correct, what do you think He feels about the rejection of His Son that He gave authority to? Consider this in light of our history.
Something to ponder!
“you are completely forgetting Daniel ch 7 where the son of man is given dominion, Kingdom, and Glory by the Ancient of Days–this is clearly Messiah we are talking about! ”
Among rabbis, only Rashi, most of whose interpretations were figurative, midrashic and non-literal, suggested that this may about “messiah”. Otherwise, there’s nothing in the text of Daniel that would suggest that it is talking about a messianic figure. Instead, from the text of Daniel itself it’s clear that the literal interpretation of the vision is that the “son of man” to whom the kingdom is given is the people of Israel, or the “holy ones” (plural).
Here’s how Daniel’s angel explains the part of the vision of the “son of man” (literally, human being):
“And the kingdom and the dominion, and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High; their kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey it.” (Daniel 7:27)
Just like the animals in the same vision are not actually “beasts”, but represent nations. This is a vision, and Christianity has appropriated the vision, discarded the actual and true interpretation provided by the angel right after the vision, and applied the whole thing to its fake demigod.
As you said, “Something to ponder!”
Gene if you wanted to pick out things in Christianity that had no scriptural basis at all, or were clearly contradictory to scripture, I’d help pick them out with you! Instead it boils down to your implying that your particular interpretation (Rabbinical Interpretation) is the only one, and you poke fun with your site at other interpretations that just might be closer to the Truth than we want to admit.
Shalom
“Instead it boils down to your implying that your particular interpretation (Rabbinical Interpretation) is the only one, and you poke fun with your site at other interpretations that just might be closer to the Truth than we want to admit.”
Michael, my interpretation??? Read Daniel for the interpretation of the *vision* that the angel himself provided right after the vision! And since we already have the interpretation directly from the angel of G-d, there’s no need (and indeed a presumptuous foolishness) for 3rd party people (living thousands of years after the fact) to attempt a novel human interpretation of the already deciphered vision!
“But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer. Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” “I am,” said Jesus. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
This prophecy from Jesus did not come to pass. He is a false prophet.
http://www.debate.org/debates/Jesus-was-a-false-prophet/1/
I’ve studied that interpretation in depth Gene, and I think it is very clearly Persia, Greece, Divided Greece, Roman, and Papal Rome. Yeshua fits the time frame from the order to Return to Jerusalem.
He the Host of Armies (The Host of Daniel 7 and 8) is cast down, and the Temple destroyed.
We know it was destroyed 69 a.d. There’s 2300 evenings and mornings (literal / figurative?) before all is restored.
The Hight Priest was supposed to see Jesus coming back Michael. Tell me, did he see that? If that did not happen, he is a false prophet, I don’t have to go in depth and calculate anything. The law said he is a false prophet, and G-d did not speak through him…
For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the elohim of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.
You know what is the sad truth Gene. I realize that Christian are really not interested to see if the claims of Jesus are true or not. They are only looking for the possibility to share their gospel. They are so sure that Jesus was predicted in the “Old” testament, that they just throw what we say in the back of their mind without even checking if what we say really makes sense. I guess someone can check the claims of Jesus only if he already has doubts. It’s really hard for any Christian to come to that point, after years of brain washing.
I was going to be kind and let you have the last word, but Remi’s last comment really got my goat, because I can say the Exact same Thing about Orthodox Judaism!
Shabot Shalom!
Sorry Michael, I am not Jewish. I was in the messianic movement for years, that is, until I checked why the Jewish People did not accept Jesus. Then… I realized I believed in a lie. But you will never know if you “believe without seeing”.